Complacency? A tragic reminder

[User00056]

Young soldier was killed when his rifle discharged. The rights and wrongs, wherefores and what-ifs can be discussed until the end of time, but nothing will bring this lad back.

Please just be careful! If a rifle isn't pointing at you, it can't kill you!

Soldier's gun training death in Highlands 'avoidable' - inquiry

A sheriff says precautions could have prevented the accident during sniper training in the Highlands.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Nickb]

Complacency more like stupidity.
Resting your chin on the suppressor with a loaded rifle ....the mind boggles.
Totally unavoidable.

 

[Border]

Complacency more like stupidity.
Resting your chin on the suppressor with a loaded rifle ....the mind boggles.
Totally unavoidable.

Avoidable......

 

[Nickb]

Avoidable......

Yep my bad

 

[Heym SR20]

All guns are ALWAYS loaded.

Never point a gun at something you don’t want to destroy.

The only two rules of gun safety you need to know.

A gun without a magazine and bolt out and in a case is still loaded.

 

[artschool]

very sad waste of a life.

 

[User00056]

Complacency more like stupidity.
Resting your chin on the suppressor with a loaded rifle ....the mind boggles

He was under the impression his rifle was unloaded. Quite what occurred to lead to that belief is unknown. But yes, regardless of that muzzle awareness was sorely lacking

 

[JockStalk]

If a professional and by reports very capable soldier can make that mistake……..

And his mates no doubt were close by and didn’t spot anything unsafe or say anything

 

[User00056]

I should have included this extract from the FAI in my original post. Very relevant to us all!

'Bolt action rifles are used by appropriately licenced members of the public, particularly in the Highlands of Scotland. They are familiar tools for game keepers and deer hunters on sporting estates. They are used in certain sporting rifle clubs. The safe handling of bolt action rifles and safe training in their use is of considerably wider interest and concern than simply for the military. The importance of properly carrying out the unloading procedure for a rifle, or any other firearm, and always knowing the condition of any firearm in one’s possession - that is to say, whether or not it is loaded – cannot be overemphasised'

 

[Foxyboy43]

How dreadfully sad and what a terrible waste of a brave young man’s life; particularly when seen against what he had gone through in Afghanistan facing death and fighting for all of us. Only after a long recovery from a grenade attack did the lad come back to active service.
A very poignant and utterly tragic reminder of why a firearm must always be treated as a loaded and deadly weapon….

 

[bakereloadprune]

Sad report.

We're reviewing our smallbore (.22RF & air) range rules and policies at the moment...or lack of. Always going back to the 4 primary rules of firearms (4 Primary Rules of Firearm Safety) as we see complacency alongside lack of reinforcement creeping in. Particularly the transfer and range-side storage of rifles and pistols with the breech closed. We don't care if there's a safety somewhere, it needs to be open!

While the onus is on the individual, in a club setting it should also fall on the surrounding members to correct bad-practice before it has time to set in.

We're going to go down the route of safety line...some feathers will be ruffled but seeing a rimfire going off unexpectedly at the ceiling (downrange) when simply closing the action, sent shivers up my spine!

Take care all.

BRP

 

[Lone wolf]

Sad to see this again, that's my old unit and platoon, I was before his time but cant comprehend how this happened and it's such a tragic reminder that weapon safety is paramount at all times.

If the lads were just crashing in the container they would have had there weapons cleared on the firing line and should have been inspected prior to coming away from the firing line by the range safety officers, something drastically wrong has happened here and a mechanism that's In place to prevent such accidents has not been done correctly.

Personal weapon handling alone should have been enough to prevent such accident from happening, let alone the additional layers of normal safety precautions that are in place when coming of a firing point.

Either way such a waste of life and a mistake that can not be undone, something that will stay with the rest of the lads for ever and no doubt it will heighten there state of mind to rifle safety

 

[FoxAndDeer]

Sad to see this again, that's my old unit and platoon, I was before his time but cant comprehend how this happened and it's such a tragic reminder that weapon safety is paramount at all times.

If the lads were just crashing in the container they would have had there weapons cleared on the firing line and should have been inspected prior to coming away from the firing line by the range safety officers, something drastically wrong has happened here and a mechanism that's In place to prevent such accidents has not been done correctly.

Personal weapon handling alone should have been enough to prevent such accident from happening, let alone the additional layers of normal safety precautions that are in place when coming of a firing point.

Either way such a waste of life and a mistake that can not be undone, something that will stay with the rest of the lads for ever and no doubt it will heighten there state of mind to rifle safety

Couldn't agree more with your post.

What is the procedure for bolt action military rifles after checking cleared? My old (civvy) club made us leave it open with a breach flag, or bolt out entirely.

Do you know the logic behind leaving the bolt in? Stop stuff getting into the action?

Genuinely curious!

 

[Lone wolf]

@FoxAndDeer

Whenever we were out with our bolt action rifles it was standard practice to leave the bolts in and closed but with no magazine inserted.

This was to like you say keep the action clean and also there will be a element of it's not going to get lost whilst soldering.

Once any weapon is drawn from the armoury its shown to be safe by the guys in the armoury and a verbal declaration is made to the words off "this rifle is unloaded " you then inspect the weapon yourself and then release the bolt and fire off the action then apply the safety.

At this point you can carry the weapon around as normal just being mindful of muzzle awareness.

if you were to pass the weapon to someone else you have to show its unload by opening the bolt and holding open the action and visually show and declare its unloaded to the person, said person confirms it's clear and then let's the bolt forward and fires off the action and safety back on.

like said if on a range these NSP's Normal safety precautions are always in place with additional layers of inspection to ensure no weapon leaves the firing point loaded

On exercise or operations there is going to be times when a rifle is classed as

Loaded

Or

Loaded and made ready

Load is the command to insert a magazine (but not cock the weapon) it's very common to have the weapon in this state for prolonged periods of time for obvious reasons.

if you were to pass your rifle to someone you would have to preform the drill known as "make safe" which is removing the magazine and showing the weapon is clear, fire off the action then re insert the magazine and say this rifle is made safe, rounds in the magazine but no rounds in the chamber.

Loaded and made ready is when on active service or exercise where you are expected to be able to return fire in a instance so this is magazine inserted and rifle cocked with the safety catch on and selector switch set to semi auto if on a full auto.

The same process happens to pass over a rifle in this state, you can make it safe and pass over or you may just say this rifle is loaded and made ready, but itself ***** flying and your slogging it out it's just known what staye the guns in.

These mechanisms do work on the whole and everyone I ever met in my time stayed safe and followed the drill to the letter.

hope that helps

 

[User00056]

What is the procedure for bolt action military rifles after checking cleared? My old (civvy) club made us leave it open with a breach flag, or bolt out entirely.

Do you know the logic behind leaving the bolt in? Stop stuff getting into the action?

Genuinely curious!

Magazine out, bolt to the rear, visual check (finger check if visibility is crap) Then a secondary confirmation by the RCO or Number 2. Bolt is closed to protect the chamber. On this particular rifle the safety has three positions, none of which are relevant if the chamber is empty. On operations it's the responsibility of the individual soldier to ensure the rifle is safe. During training ops there are various checks (which failed in this case).

Conclusion of the FAI was that (given the evidence) it was a series of omissions that failed to identify the rifle still had a round in the chamber, and combined with how the lad was holding the rifle led to the trigger being snagged and him taking the bullet to the head. Absolutely tragic.

 

[FoxAndDeer]

@FoxAndDeer

Whenever we were out with our bolt action rifles it was standard practice to leave the bolts in and closed but with no magazine inserted.

This was to like you say keep the action clean and also there will be a element of it's not going to get lost whilst soldering.

Once any weapon is drawn from the armoury its shown to be safe by the guys in the armoury and a verbal declaration is made to the words off "this rifle is unloaded " you then inspect the weapon yourself and then release the bolt and fire off the action then apply the safety.

At this point you can carry the weapon around as normal just being mindful of muzzle awareness.

if you were to pass the weapon to someone else you have to show its unload by opening the bolt and holding open the action and visually show and declare its unloaded to the person, said person confirms it's clear and then let's the bolt forward and fires off the action and safety back on.

like said if on a range these NSP's Normal safety precautions are always in place with additional layers of inspection to ensure no weapon leaves the firing point loaded

On exercise or operations there is going to be times when a rifle is classed as

Loaded

Or

Loaded and made ready

Load is the command to insert a magazine (but not cock the weapon) it's very common to have the weapon in this state for prolonged periods of time for obvious reasons.

if you were to pass your rifle to someone you would have to preform the drill known as "make safe" which is removing the magazine and showing the weapon is clear, fire off the action then re insert the magazine and say this rifle is made safe, rounds in the magazine but no rounds in the chamber.

Loaded and made ready is when on active service or exercise where you are expected to be able to return fire in a instance so this is magazine inserted and rifle cocked with the safety catch on and selector switch set to semi auto if on a full auto.

The same process happens to pass over a rifle in this state, you can make it safe and pass over or you may just say this rifle is loaded and made ready, but itself ***** flying and your slogging it out it's just known what staye the guns in.

These mechanisms do work on the whole and everyone I ever met in my time stayed safe and followed the drill to the letter.

hope that helps

Makes sense - thank you for explaining.

Hadn't considered losing a bolt - but that's a really good point.

Thanks for the explanation

 

[User00056]

Hadn't considered losing a bolt - but that's a really good point

If it can be broken, or lost, a soldier will break it, or lose it.

I've seen guys lose gas plugs, springs, and/or pistons within moments of them field stripping weapons

 

[Foxyboy43]

Tragically the poor lad who died is sadly inevitably in some ways to blame.
The Range Officer or senior officer who apparently did not confirm the basic clear check and announce it to all before permitting the guys to leave their firing points with their firearms will have a terrible time ahead of him. I say this not knowing if by the very nature of sniping there were many individual firing points rather than a straightforward single firing point for all; that said the basic check if firearms are clear and safe is paramount.

 

[Long drag]

Know nothing about this incident, but I would say the troops in the live firing Ex would be a Static location, or moving forward engaging tgts at different ranges.
So not a standard range, under his own command you can get very carried away watching and engaging tgts, probably loaded and unloaded multiple times in the course of the Ex, cold, tired possibly hungry glad to return to the container to rest ect, wpn not cleared as it should be by himself or OIC.

Easy to judge this man, but you would have to be in his boots to understand.

 

[RJD]

I wonder why it took 8 years for a verdict, seems quite obvious what happened?